


Nightingale

by emeralddarkness



Category: The Lord of the Rings (Movies), The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Galadriel is very sad, Gen, sisterly relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-05
Updated: 2014-02-05
Packaged: 2018-01-11 07:51:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1170556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emeralddarkness/pseuds/emeralddarkness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lúthien needed help, and so there were others who knew, before she set out on her quest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nightingale

"Please." Her voice is hurried, worried; Lúthien - always fair - has become almost translucent. Her complexion has always been cream and roses, but the roses had departed, and left her pale as milk.

"Lúthien-"

"Please. Please promise me."

Galadriel feels cold as she looks at the other woman. Lúthien had changed. Her eyes are not the grey of twilight, they are missing the hidden depths that once they held; Galadriel cannot see the springtime in them anymore.

Lúthien is her sister. So many of her true family are dead, so many of them lost to her forever beyond the ends of Middle-Earth. She'd been so glad to discover there were so many to love in Thingol's court - a mother, a father, a new family of her own to start; there was love to find and to be found. But now she fears she is losing another of those dear to her, and does not know how to stop it happening. "Lúthien, your father took me in, your mother took me as a student, your family gave me a home, I cannot-"

"I can't just stay here and wait, Galadriel. But Father won't let me go. I know him better than you do, I think, and I know that- I can't stay here."

Galadriel feels the chill of prophecy race up her spine, twisting through her brain like a lance of ice. "There is only darkness on that path." The words are frozen on her tongue and taste like winter as she speaks them; she knows there is truth in every syllable. Lúthien's expression does not change, even minutely. It is as though she had not heard.

"I can't stay here. Not with him in- he belongs to me. Or maybe it's I who belong to him. Either way I can't stay here."

"You barely know him," Galadriel says at last, giving words to what had been foremost in her thoughts ever since this all had begun, her voice turning desperate. "You haven't had _time_ to come to know him. You never will, Lúthien, he's a human, humans _die_."

"If he dies, I will too," the other woman says, now completely colorless. "Please, _as you love me_ , don't tell Father."

Galadriel feels her heart in her throat, and cannot breathe for it. She does not cry (that will come later) but takes Lúthien's hand in hers. She is as cold as she is pale. "I owe it to him not to lie," she says, the sentence sticking in her throat as though unwilling to be spoken, "but I will not tell him if he does not ask me."

Lúthien comes at her in a rush and embraces her, pressing a kiss against her cheek as she does so, and then turns and is gone. She is just one more shadow sliding into the others, away from the Lady of Light.


End file.
